Google on Saturday commemorated Austrian artist Gustav Klimt's 150th birthday with a signature doodle that incorporates the symbolist painter's most famous work, The Kiss, in a gold-plated rendering of the search giant's logo.

Klimt, born outside of Vienna in 1862, was trained as an architectural painter at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule) and spent his early career exhibiting what the online Klimt museum describes as an "academic" style. In 1888, he was the recipient of Austria-Hungary's Golden Order of Merit from Emperor Franz Josef I for a series of murals he, his younger brother Ernst, and a friend, Franz Matsch, painted in Vienna's Burgtheater.

But Klimt would famously rebel against the restrictions of the conservative art establishment in his home city, helping to lead an artistic movement that became known as the Vienna Secession in the late 1890s. Prior to this period, the artist was beset with personal tragedy, losing both his brother Ernst Klimt and his father, a gold engraver also named Ernst Klimt, in 1892.

In the early 1890s, he met Emilie Flöge, the woman who would be his lifelong companion, though he would have other relationships and fathered 14 children with several different women.

The Vienna Secession movement embraced any and all artistic styles, helping to foster a period of tremendous experimentation in the art world in the last quarter of the 19th century that saw the invention of many new forms, aesthetics, and techniques in the visual artsimpressionism, Art Nouveau, symbolism, pointillism, etc.

Klimt's famous "Golden phase" saw the artist tap his family roots in working with the precious metal and begin to incorporate gold leaf in his paintings. Historians believe his first such work was 1898's Pallas Athene. Klimt's golden period culminated in the years 1907 and 1908 with a pair of arresting paintings using Byzantine imagery, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and The Kiss.

The latter painting, evoking Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement, was immediately recognized as a triumph for Klimt. The square, almost six foot-by-six foot painting now resides at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere Museum in Vienna's Belvedere Palace. The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, meanwhile, was purchased through Christie's in 2006 by Estee Lauder chairman and Neue Galerie New York founder Ronald Lauder for a then-record $135 millionthough that transaction was not without controversy.

Klimt died in 1918 at the age of 55, one of the estimated 50 to 130 million victims of the "Spanish flu" epidemic that ravaged populations around the globe as World War I drew to a close.

About the Author

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Ch... See Full Bio

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.